Introduction

A few weeks back it felt like Oprah was giving cars away. Only that the cars were books and we actually had to pay for them. So essentially not the same thing at all, but still amazing.

Every year Exclusive Books hosts a warehouse sale in Johannesburg (maybe twice a year?) and sells the books for R50 per kilogram (that's about €5). Holy shit.

The books were just too cool. My cousin and I just loaded in anything we thought could be remotely interesting (in other terms if the cover was colourful), but my sister was more discerning. In the end we walked out with 47kg between the three of us.

It is great to not have to fork out R800 for an art book. Normally, the books I use for research cost too much because they are in quite a specific field that doesn't interest the general public? Online activism, you say? We just push the 'like' button on Facebook and things change. Comic books and graphic novels as literary works? No, man, those are just for children/nerds. I'll wait til someone makes a movie out of it. How the Internet has affected/changed our way of thinking? Not really interested, hand me 50 Shades of Grey please.

Sure, I am generalising (as always), but what made the warehouse sale so fun is stocking up on books you would ordinarily not consider because they would not fit in entirely with the information you need and then not justify the expense incurred. But here, paying between R50 and R150 for a great art book is beyond worth it. I might have grabbed one or two silly books (like the one where you have to identify famous people by their hairstyle). Overall however this was better than Christmas and Easter and birthdays all put together.

hahahaha

Wednesday was the final battle. The same lady comes every year from Bloemfontein to see if our French is up to par and give the final stamp of approval. Since my first year I have had some aversion towards her, but luckily I've learnt to smile and nod and wait for her to finish asking a question that is hidden somewhere in her ten minute elaboration on my dissertation. It all went fine. Now I am donedonedonedonedonedone. It is exhilarating and anxiety-inducing at the same time, this not knowing what and where and when and how.

Until the future and I see eye-to-eye, here are my summer reads, courtesy of one last meander through the university's library:

1. Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger (2008) 

2. Carson McCullers : The heart is a lonely hunter (1940)

3. J.P. Singh: Globalized Arts (2011)

4. Frank Rose: The Art of Immersion (2011)
      or a review on The Guardian

5. Ilija Trojanow: Der Weltensammler (2006)

6. Irvine Welsh: Trainspotting (1993)

7. Anna Gavalda: Ich wünsche mir, daß irgendwo jemand auf mich wartet  (1999: Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part)

8. Anton Harber: Diepsloot (2011)

9. John Kinsella: Peripheral Light (2004)

10. Marjane Satrapi: Persepolis ( 2003)

Treading water

The reason I went to France was for writing a short story about my social awkwardness. I posted earlier about going to a party where no one appreciated my wit and talent. But ultimately I should probably thank the party-goers for ignoring me and giving me something to write about.

If you want to read the story, here is the link. However, it's only in French. To make up for this fact this is a link to an article on the event, also in Francais, but with images. Man, in the one image I look like a mountain. Doesn't help that the other two laureates are 9 and 13 years younger than me and always look adorable. You know sometimes you wear things and think you look decent enough, and then, years later, you scroll through old photographs and wonder how you could ever have put that on. I don't feel this way about my wardrobe now, but perhaps I should reconsider. But actually it is funny. I appreciate a good bad photograph.

I make it sound like I am this super-socially-awkward hermit who cannot interact normally with others. I can. Giving tutor classes is no problem, or presenting something, or talking to people I know. But I detest the small-talk one has to make at functions, I hate having to talk to people who have no real interest in me if there is no profit for them. Also, I like discussing topics, events, anything exciting. The emphasis is on discussion. If the other party fails to add anything stimulating to the conversation, I would mostly like to just walk away, but since that is considered rude I fumble with my clothes and hands and words because I feel I need to save the situation, somehow, and it all just becomes very weird and uncomfortable.

Even reading is uncomfortable. 

Acknowledge

Ok, I must confess something now: I have copied a few things from Riette over at Confessions of a Pretoria Chique. On her site I discovered the two buttons that now also cheer up my constantly changing page :

• I pledge to read the printed word, which quite self-evidently supports reading anything that is printed. With all the tablets, e-readers and online newspapers that are taking over, people are forgetting the thrill of burying one's nose in the crisp smell of a brand new book, or appreciating second hand books with special inscriptions and an even more interesting smell of the old and forgotten. At some point last year I scribbled this in my diary after a visit to the dark recesses of the library: "Books, when touched, breathe out a sigh of relief - we have not been forgotten, our words are not for nothing, our knowledge is still here, reachable, touchable, at your fingertips. "

and

• LINKwithlove, which supports the idea that although the internet is such a vast virtual reality with so much information, the source should always be acknowledged. Strange how in business, at university and even at school plagiarism is seen as an evil, but online no-one fears copying someone else's ideas because it does not seem to be so important. I try to name the sources, simply because I would also appreciate being named if someone were to like my ideas or images or so. Here is LINKwithlove's mission statement:

Resurrect

I found this book by James Bradley ( his blog is also noteworthy) on my grandmother's shelf and after a year of only reading "proper" literature ( as in the books that form part of top 100 lists, but are tedious to get through), this was a good read. I like books that transport me far away from my reality, into another time and another country, where the mindset and the circumstances are vastly different from my own.

The Resurrectionist follows the life of Gabriel Swift, who is orphaned at a young age and as a teenager starts working for an anatomist. Through various choices he is fired and "descends into a hell partly of his own making and the violence of the London underworld" ( read the full description and listen to three readings by the author on Faber & Faber) . The story is also loosely based on the Burke and Hare murders, where two Irishmen killed 17 people and sold the bodies to Dr Robert Knox.

What I liked most was Bradley's preoccupation with how our identities are shaped and how the fragility of life is often ignored. We take living for granted, without considering that it all has to end, sooner or later.

"They are such little things, these lives of ours; cheap got, cheap lost, mere flickers against the ever dark, brief shadows on a wall. This life no more substantial than breath, a light which fills the chambers of our bodies, and is gone."